


I Can't Bear to Fly

by keep_me_alone



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Batfamily Feels, Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt, Emotions, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hey y'all I made myself cry, Hurt/Comfort, I swooooore to god I wasn't gonna write a fic like this but I guess I fuckn lied, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Limited third person POV mostly Clark, Suicide Attempt, Wakes & Funerals, batfamily, lots of suicide themes nk, some h/c, the darkest timeline, well I guess I mean not any more lmaooooo RIP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 09:24:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13028058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keep_me_alone/pseuds/keep_me_alone
Summary: Bruce Wayne is dead. It is Clark's fault. It is everyone's fault. It is no one's fault at all. Surprisingly, the funeral is not a disaster.





	I Can't Bear to Fly

**Author's Note:**

> Superman (It's Not Easy)  
> Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep: Mary Elizabeth Frye
> 
> YEah I just became That Bitch IDC fight me abt it

As in every cliché funeral, it is raining. Then again this is also standard for Gotham. Clark hates the weather here. Although he doesn’t get cold, and can’t catch one, the damp seeps into him. He feels the loss of the sun acutely. There is a man reading a poem that Clark isn’t really listening to. He wonders, distantly, if the Planet will expect a story on this when he comes back. He doesn’t really care though, he won’t give it to them.

“Do not stand at my grave and weep   
I am not there. I do not sleep.”

Bruce would hate this poem, Clark thinks, he wondered who picked it. The compulsion is to blame Alfred for not orchestrating this better, and Clark is immediately ashamed of himself. The man has lost his son. Clark has a deep inexplicable knowledge of the fact of Bruce’s death, and it’s not just because he can see into the coffin holding his friends body, even from here, but it is something that he feels in his bones. Bruce definitely, and for sure, is in that grave. He isn’t sleeping. He is dead.

Everything turns in Clark’s mind with a strange, mechanical quality that he doesn’t understand, hasn’t really experienced before. Of course, he’s known people who have died, even people who were important, but this is Bruce. He doesn’t know what to do.  Clark doesn’t know how to deal with the knowledge that this is his fault. Of course, he’s failed to save people before, sometimes people directly under his care, _but this is Bruce._ Bruce was never supposed to die. Not like this.

If he was capable of being rational at that moment, Clark would have realized that everyone at the funeral was thinking the same damn thing. No one had seen what was supposedly right in front of them. But Bruce had always been prone to brooding, the anger was familiar too, and maybe not at this intensity, but it wasn’t anything strange or alarming. And no one had seen it. And no one had done anything.

It was probably impolite to look at other people at a funeral, but Clark was… well, Clark. He didn’t have the capacity to think about his own state at the moment, but he was still concerned about the rest of the family.  The wind that had picked up did not seem to affect Alfred in the slightest. He stares woodenly at the coffin resting over a six-foot hole in the ground, decorated by a spray of lilies that somehow seem obscene. Clark hasn’t seen him show anything resembling an emotion since Bruce had been found. Since Alfred had given them the news. He wondered, as he hated himself for wondering it, whether this meant that Alfred would die too. He was an old man. Bruce had been so much a part of his life, a part of his purpose, that some part of Clark wondered if he would just disappear now. Of course, there was the rest of the family to take care of, but that wouldn’t matter if Alfred didn’t take it upon himself to keep living. He was the epitome of the British butler, and his upper lip was stiffer than anyone’s, but Clark had seen, was now seeing, what losing the will to live could do to a person. How it could undo them.

Tim has almost the same, dead expression as Alfred. To Clark’s eye though, always on those around him, there are differences. Tim has his arms wrapped tightly around himself, shielding himself from the wind and rain, like he is embracing himself, literally holding himself together. Tim’s eyes are rimmed with red, he’s been crying on and off. Off, currently. Though Clark can’t read his mind, he understands that Tim blames himself as much Clark, as much as Alfred does. It is nobody’s fault. Nobody is willing to admit this. But Tim, who saved Bruce after Jason had died, had not been there this time. Tim has been busy, trying to get his degree, learning how to manage Wayne Enterprises. Clark has complete confidence in him, knows that he will be much better at running the business than Bruce ever was. That thought is painful, like poking the hole left by a recently vanished tooth. The tooth here, the hole, is Bruce. It’s strange how his absence is still surprising every time Clark notices it. It has been a week. He feels like he should understand this now. That Bruce is gone. He doesn’t.

Clark glances back and sees Steph. They make brief eye contact before Clark fixes his eyes back where they belong. She is the most lucid of them all, perhaps even including Clark. Her grief is deep and resigned, and he can tell her chest feels as heavy as his, but she bears it. As the rest of them, Steph knows grief intimately. He realizes, perhaps a little belatedly, that she is probably responsible for most of the planning that has been done since Bruce’s death.

“When you awaken in the morning's hush   
I am the swift uplifting rush”

And maybe things make more sense now. That this poem isn’t so much about Bruce, but about the rest of them. He turns again, and when their eyes meet this time, he gives her a brief nod. She covers her eyes, crying suddenly. Clark wants to reach out to her, but doesn’t know how to do so in a way that is appropriate for this time and place. She should not have to bear this burden alone. Steph has always been part of the family, but taking on a death, this death, by herself is too much for any one person, no matter how capable they may be. No matter how much they are dying to belong, to prove it to themselves, maybe even to the others. Clark resolves to do better by her.

Next to him, Barbara is crying angrily. Peripherally, Clark sees Jim try to put his hand on her shoulder, sees her shove it away. He knows that they had a complicated relationship. To both of them, Jim and Bruce. Clark has never been told the particulars of what happened, but he knows that it has something to do with her being in a chair now. That is not something he has ever experienced, something he ever will. He cannot imagine what might be going through her mind right now.

There are a few noticeable absences here. Cass is one. Damian is another. Jason, surprisingly is here. Alfred had gathered the family, all of them, in the cave to tell them when it had happened. It had set the world spinning on some new axis, and nothing had been right since. Cass had disappeared immediately. Clark had heard her screaming in the woods for an eternity after. And though he ached for her pain, it was _hers_. She’d clearly wanted to be alone. Clark didn’t know how to help her beyond giving her the solitude she required. She hadn’t said a single word before leaving, and Clark hadn’t seen her since then. He felt guilty for that. Guilt seemed to be the only thing he’d felt recently. He’d been so busy, doing _something_ , but couldn’t say what. And if he had saved the world recently, it seemed inconsequential to the world he hadn’t saved. The one in front of him, that he had just watched collapse.

Damian had missed most of the funeral. Clark wonders if this is his fault too. Has a profound knowledge that it is. Damian had not wanted to come at all. Clark had had to drag him literally kicking and screaming into the car. He had screamed and struggled the whole way there, despite the fact that he was a boy and Clark was possessed of a strength impossible in any other man. He had held the boy close, terrified what might happen if he let go even for a moment. It was impossible to describe how he had felt desperately clinging to a writhing child, who wanted nothing but to be left alone to scream his grief to the sky. But there had been a decision made that Damian was ‘going whether he liked it or not’, though Clark could no longer remember who had made that decision. It didn’t really matter. He’d been the monster who’d enforced it. Maybe Metropolis was right to be afraid. They had left Damian in one of the cars, where he had sat and cried and yelled himself into exhaustion. The choice to come out had been his alone. All they (who?) had wanted, was for him to have a chance to come if he changed his mind. It was his father’s funeral.

At some point, Clark had become aware that Damian was sitting up in a nearby tree. His suit was absolutely shredded, possibly torn deliberately by the boy himself. Clark was fiercely, irrationally proud of him. Presently though, Damian was drenched, his thin dress shirt transparent from the rain and ripped in several places. He was shivering violently in the wind. Clark wanted to offer him something, anything, but didn’t want to scare him away. Damian had fought himself to be here, and Clark didn’t want to ruin that more than he already had. He wanted to be sick just thinking about it. It was the clearest feeling he’d had in days.

“Of quiet birds in circled flight.   
I am the soft stars that shine at night.”

Clark wondered if any of them would be able to look at the night the same way. It was difficult to see the stars in Gotham. The night was certainly darker without Bruce in it. Jason is glaring up into the clouds, ignoring the water as it falls into his eyes. His posture is taut as a bowstring. Clark knows the instant they are done, he will be gone, propelled by a force only he feels. Jason hangs back from the rest of them. Present, yet distant, in a way that seems to define his relationship to the family in general. Although he does not know how to address him, Clark is deeply worried for Jason. Even by Jason’s own standards, he is not handling things well.

The night Alfred had told them, Jason had been in a car accident. He had just disappeared from the cave, without theatrics, without anyone noticing, without anyone stopping him. He should not have been driving. Clark had added this to the world of weight he was already carrying. Anything, everything that had happened, he could have prevented. This most of all. But he hadn’t been paying attention, wrapped up in his own selfish grief. Jason had not offered any explanation. He had called Dick to come pick him up, take him to the cave to get it sorted. Jason has a bandage on his face, covering the stitches that Dick had given him without anaesthetic. His arm is still wrapped in a cast, will be for some time. If it doesn’t heal correctly, it will be a constant reminder of this week. Of Bruce. Of all those years.  Dick was not as good as Alfred, with his military training, but neither of them had wanted to face him. What Clark is really concerned about here though, is whether or not it had truly been an accident. That was what Jason had said. All he would say. Clark _will_ be around this time though. He _will_ be at the cave more, available to these adult children who have just lost their father. He _will not_ make the same mistake twice.

And then, the only one left is Dick, staring at the shining, wet wood of the coffin. His gaze isn't the same hardened distance as Alfred's though. It isn’t Tim’s dissociative sheen. It is close and emotional, and it hurts Clark even to look at. Like Jason, Dick also is without an umbrella. The rain is dripping down his face, mixing with the tears, plastering hair to skin. His suit is probably ruined. Dick has done this intentionally, for reasons he does not understand himself. The Golden son has lost his father again.

The man, (pastor?) continues to read.

 

"Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die."

 

It is still a lie.

The wind picks up again, and it is vicious, raking its teeth over everyone in attendance. Privately, Clark thinks that this suits Bruce better than anything that has happened here today. He has a weird feeling, one he doesn't know what to do with, that Bruce would be unimpressed with them, with this show of grief, and Clark doesn't know what would make Bruce happy, what could make this better. He doesn't know if it matters anymore.

But the wind is howling around them, and Clark can see it knifing into everyone else around him. Dick is shivering violently, and it doesn't really matter whether its because he is sobbing again, or because of the cold. Clark wishes he had a jacket, his cape, anything that he could cover Dick with, because he looks like he's about to collapse. Clark does, to his mind, the next best thing, and stands behind Dick, placing one broad, warm hand on his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs. It is more than Dick can bear and he is turning towards him, balling Clark’s coat in his fists in a way that probably would have hurt an ordinary man. But Clark is stone. He is steel. Dick has fallen against him in a way that Clark is supporting most of his weight, trying to keep the sobbing man on his feet. It’s like something vital has just gone out in him. The will to stand, to be there, to exist in that moment it’s just gone. Clark knows that a part of Dick has died with Bruce, and he knows because a part of him has died as well. It’s not a part he can name. He knows with a surety he cannot explain that it will not come back, that none of them will ever be quite the same after this.

He hopes though, desperately, against all sense, that they might recover. That maybe Dick will smile again, make a stupid pun that everyone will pretend to hate. He hopes that Alfred will go back to his cutting remarks, Tim to his coffee and artfully honed irony, that Steph will continue to party and study and lust loudly after boys, and that she continues to _live_ , that Cass will quietly return and bring her slow, sly humour back with her. Though Clark doesn’t know her well, he hopes that Barbara will continue sassing her way through life, eviscerating any who dare to think of her as less than. He hopes that Damian will recover, will remember what it is like to be overconfident and so energetic in his surety, and even that someday he might learn how to temper these attributes. His life is still so new. There is so much he could be. Clark wants for him to have that choice.

He wants Jason to make a similar choice. Clark doesn’t, cannot know if he will, but he wants Jason to choose to live. He has been through so much, and no one could blame him if finally this was the battle that costs him the war, but Clark desperately, maybe foolishly hopes that this will not be so. Jason deserves to find peace. It has eluded him for years. And beyond Jason himself, and maybe it is selfish, but Clark is also afraid for what might happen to the family with Jason’s death. If any of them would survive that again, after this.

In coda, the pastor repeats the first couplet of the poem.

“Do not stand at my grave and weep   
I am not there. I do not sleep."

 

Of all the things he could be known for, Superman is a symbol of hope. And although he carries the guilt of this tragedy, a responsibility that should not be his, he also carries hope. For this family he loves and is sometimes blessed to be a part of and against all probability, he really does believe that this is not all there is. That life is not just a string of funerals and death, that there is so much to be said and known in connection with others, in the relationships that define a life.

This is a grave. There is death here. But there is also life.

Clark does not know what he is feeling. But he is _feeling_ , and it is too much, more than he wants or than he can bear. He feels it anyways. For all of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, idk if this needs to (or should) be said or not, but something to think about: if it seems ambiguous whether Bruce ACtually killed himself or not, it's supposed to. Bruce knew what he was doing would get him killed some day. Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether he took his own life, whether he was killed acting recklessly in a fight, whether it was some one off who got a lucky shot in. Bruce knew what he was about.


End file.
